Essays in Liberalism | Page 3

your chairman would say, some people have more faith than others, but there is really a distinct attitude of mind adopted by some supporters of the League from that adopted by others.
THE TWO VIEWS OF THE LEAGUE
There is what I may call the empirical view of the League. There are those of us in this country, and indeed all over the world, who, profoundly impressed with the horrors of war, hating war from the bottom of their hearts as an evil thing--a company which must include, as far as I can see, all Christian men and women--these people, impressed with the horrors of war, look about for some means of keeping it away, some safeguard against its renewal. And they say: "We have tried everything else, we have tried the doctrine of the preparation for war as a great safeguard of peace; we have tried the doctrine of the Balance of Power; we have tried the doctrine of making one State or group of States so powerful that it can enforce its will on the rest of the world. We have tried all these expedients, and we are driven to the conclusion that they lead not to peace, but to war. Is there anything else?" And then they come quite legitimately to the League as their last hope of preserving the peace of the world. I was talking to a distinguished Frenchman the other day, and that was his attitude. It is the attitude of a great many people. In my judgment it is quite sound as far as it goes. But it is not inspiring. It depends in the last resort merely on a frank appeal to the terrors of mankind.
Against that view you may set the more fundamental way of approaching this question. You may say if you are to have peace in the world it is not enough merely to provide safeguards against war. You must aim at creating a new international spirit, a new spirit in international affairs; you must build from the very foundations. That is the positive as opposed to the negative way of approaching this question. It is not enough to cast out the war spirit and leave its habitation swept and garnished. You have to replace the war spirit by a spirit of international co-operation. And that is the way of regarding this great movement which some people think can be disposed of by describing it as idealism--a favourite term of abuse, I learn, now, but which seems to me not only good politics and good morality, but common sense as well.
THE NEGATIVE AND THE POSITIVE
These two points of view do represent undoubtedly fundamental differences of political attitude, and you will find that the two sets of advocates or supporters of the League whom I have tried to describe, will inevitably regard with different emphasis the provisions of the Covenant, and even the achievements of the League. For if you read the Covenant you will find two sets of provisions in that document. It does recognise the two schools, as it were, that I have been describing. It has a set of provisions which deal with the enforcement, the safeguarding of peace, and a set of provisions which deal with the building up of international co-operation. You will notice the two sets of provisions. There are those aiming directly at the settlement of disputes without war. This is the central part of the League. It is the first thing before you can hope to do anything else. Before you can begin to build up your international spirit you must get rid as far as you can of the actual menace of war; and in that sense this is the central part of the Covenant. But, in my view, the most enduring and perhaps the most important part is that set of provisions which cluster round the group of articles beginning with Article 10 perhaps, certainly Article 12, and going on to Article 17--the group which says in effect that before nations submit their disputes to the arbitrament of war they are bound to try every other means of settling their differences. It lays down first the principle that every dispute should come to some kind of arbitration, either by the new Court of International Justice--one of the great achievements of the League--or discussion before a specially constituted Arbitration Court, or failing both, then discussion before the Council of the League; and Articles 15 and 16 provide that until that discussion has taken place, and until adequate time has been allowed for the public opinion of the world to operate on the disputants as the result of that examination, no war is to take place, and if any war takes place the aggressor is to be regarded as perhaps what may be called